Bandit Queen

She was a warrior queen who rallied men into battle and won the hearts of her people. No, not Elizabeth I. Before Shekhar Kapur set his sights on the Virgin Queen, he made this brutal epic about Phoolan Devi, a bandit who became a household name in India in the early 80s. With palpable outrage Kapur shows Devi bartered into marriage, then raped, imprisoned and later kidnapped by a gang of outlaws - before becoming one of its leaders. For all its unapologetic myth-making (its accuracy has been questioned, not least by Devi herself), Bandit Queen offers a terrible ratcheting-up of violence, ending with her bloody revenge on a village in which she was gang-raped. Devi's life was no less interesting after it was put on film. Released from prison, she went into politics and was assassinated in 2001.